


Thoughtless

by sciencefictioness



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Blood and Gore, Dragon Genji Shimada, Dragon Hanzo Shimada, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mates, Sexual Slavery, Sibling Incest, Telepathy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:49:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: "Wouldn’t get too close if I was you,” Riggs says as Jesse edges up towards them, just on the other side of a streak of red spray paint on the concrete.As if on cue the shifter with green scales moves like lightning, faster than Jesse can follow with his eyes.  He snarls at the end of his chain, claws swiping at empty air scarcely an inch from Jesse’s face. His bares his teeth, hissing.  He’s furious.He’s beautiful.  Another inch and he’d have slit Jesse’s throat.  Arousal surges through him unbidden, all twisted up with shame; these two have been through enough already without Jesse ogling them, but he can’t help himself.  His wires have always been crossed like that.Fear comes, as it often should, but it rarely comes alone.
Relationships: Genji Shimada/Hanzo Shimada, Jesse McCree/Genji Shimada/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 19
Kudos: 293





	Thoughtless

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shimadacest week day five, 'Blue'. Warning for... intersex dragon genitalia? 😤

Jesse’s always been good with animals. It’s why they called him here.

The sky is a riot of red and orange against the horizon as the sun drops down beneath it, black already creeping in from the east. Jesse watches for a while, leaning against his bike drinking in the sight of it. His cigarette has burned down to the filter. Jesse flicks it into the sand. 

He won’t be here much longer, and he has a feeling it’ll be a long while before he comes back again. The desert has always felt like home, even if Jesse doesn’t usually want to admit it.

Even if he was glad to leave it behind, and loathe to return. It’s been easier than he wants to admit; being in Deadlock again.

Pretending to be in Deadlock. All these years he’s spent coming up in Blackwatch, Deadlock thinks he spent in supermax. He has, some of the time— a few weeks here and there, often enough to run across some other gangbanger being shifted from one facility to the next or make a show of getting into a fight and being tossed into solitary.

Deadlock used to spend all their time running drugs and guns, but they’ve started trafficking in humans, now. They succeeded in catching Overwatch’s attention.

Catching Gabriel’s attention.

When Blackwatch sends Jesse undercover to try and hunt down some of Deadlock’s bigger connections, his story checks out. They got raided. He did his time. 

Now he’s back with a brand new chip on his shoulder and a hatred of the government that’s genuine, if exaggerated. Deadlock was glad to have him back; Jesse was always good, but he’s better now. Smarter, stronger. They write it off as all those years spent in a cell, confinement turning him sharp and dangerous.

It was Gabriel Reyes who made him sharp and dangerous, but Jesse doesn’t correct them. The weeks slip by, shift into months. It’s the longest he’s ever spent undercover, but Blackwatch finally has most of what they need. Deadlock is set to get raided again in a few weeks, as soon as their next shipment comes in— heroin, assault weapons, and explosives.

People. 

Jesse has hated every second of this mission, but it will feel good to put an end to things once and for all. 

The rolling door to his left groans and starts rattling open, gears grinding. It stops three-fourths of the way up, revealing a line of tarps strung up just inside the warehouse. Riggs shoves his hand through and pulls them apart, ducking down to peer at Jesse. His eyes dart around, wide with nerves that are edging into fear.

“You coming, or?”

Jesse hums and rocks up onto his feet, bending under the garage door and pushing past the frayed tarps. They crinkle as he steps through, dirt shaking free to cloud the air.

“Rivers tried hitting them with a tranq but it’s not working like it should. Dunno if they’re just burning through it too fast, or if he wasn’t hitting them right, but one of ‘em tore him up real good and he got pissed and took off. I ain’t good at this shit, but if they die before the buyer makes the pickup I’m gonna catch hell.”

Jesse follows Riggs through another line of tarps, and the smell of ammonia hits him in the face. Deadlock doesn’t specialize in illegal animal trading, but some of their more important clients like to use them as errand boys, and what’s left of Deadlock’s leadership can’t afford to say no.

It’s noisy without the soundproofing keeping everything muffled— a half-dozen macaws screech from the opposite side of the warehouse, not to mention another dozen or so birds Jesse doesn’t immediately recognize. Amazons, maybe. Some kind of cockatoo. There are a pair of servals hissing through the bars of their kennels, and a lemur giving an intermittent squeal; the chaos of animals that are both unhappy and unwell. They won’t be here long before someone comes to pick them up, either to deliver them, or send them further on their way.

Jesse has always been good with animals. It’s why they called him.

That’s not why he came.

There’s one section of the warehouse without cages— just empty floor space with a drain in the concrete nearby, heavy chains affixed to metal rings along the wall. Most of them are empty, the chains rusting in piles.

In the corner there are a pair of men curled up on the floor together. They’re filthy, naked and streaked with dirt and gore. Thick metal collars wrap around their necks, padlocks dangling from the front, chains dragging the ground. Places on their skin shimmer with snatches of color— iridescent scales gleaming on their cheekbones and shoulders and hips, even through the grime. Curling around their wrists, shimmering up their spines. 

Deadlock doesn’t just traffick humans, doesn’t just traffick animals. They traffick shifters, too. Most countries are making big steps forward in civil rights for shifters— they’re protected under international law, with all the same rights as anyone else— but there are still places where they’re treated as little more than animals. Hunted to extinction, or kept as pets. Pretty to look at, a status symbol; like having a tiger leashed in the yard.

Something dangerous for someone with too much money and no morals tie down and fuck when they get bored.

As far as Jesse knows, these are the first shifters to come through while he’s been undercover. They’re dragon shifters; incredibly rare, and incredibly expensive. Incredibly dangerous when provoked. 

Deadlock has done nothing but provoke them. The shifter laying prone has scales in glittering blue, his long hair matted with blood and tangled around his face. The one curled protectively over him is colored in snatches of vivid green. They look like they’re sleeping.

They look like they’re dead. 

“They ain’t eating?”

“Ain’t eating, ain’t drinking. Blue one ain’t taking his meds. Wouldn’t get too close if I was you,” Riggs says as Jesse edges up towards them, just on the other side of a streak of red spray paint on the concrete.

As if on cue the shifter with green scales moves like lightning, faster than Jesse can follow with his eyes. He snarls at the end of his chain, claws swiping at empty air scarcely an inch from Jesse’s face. His bares his teeth, hissing. He’s furious.

He’s beautiful. Another inch and he’d have slit Jesse’s throat. Arousal surges through him unbidden, all twisted up with shame; these two have been through enough already without Jesse ogling them, but he can’t help himself. His wires have always been crossed like that.

Fear comes, as it often should, but it rarely comes alone. Jesse fights down the heat that’s rising in him— the unwelcome, misplaced want. The shifter sniffs the air and cocks his head to the side, brows furrowed. They can smell the attraction on Jesse, however subtle.

The other one glances at him through the curtain of his hair, his skin pale, his breathing labored. He’s injured, somehow. In transit, or by one of the Deadlocks in charge of delivering him. No one wants to own up, but Jesse doesn’t give a shit either way. Blackwatch is coming long before the wounded shifter will be ready to be transferred to the buyer they have waiting. 

All Jesse has to do is keep them both alive until then and they’ll be free to go where they please. Back home, if they have one. Into Shifter Support Services, if they don’t. Over the past few months Jesse has been forced to watch a whole lot of people slip through his fingers, biding his time so Blackwatch can hit everyone where it hurts the most. All that’s done, now. Nobody else is dying on his watch.    
  


Nobody who isn’t Deadlock, anyway.

“Why don’t you fuck off a while,” Jesse says to Riggs, inclining his head towards the door of the warehouse. “Let me have some words with these boys.”

Riggs goes without argument, even if he gives Jesse a strange look. There are a lot of Deadlocks who’d like some time alone with a pair of gorgeous shifters who’re set to be sold off anyway; Jesse has never been one of them. It doesn’t matter what Riggs thinks, though, even if he is Jesse’s favorite of the whole worthless lot of them.

Once he’s gone Jesse sits down on the floor to dig in his backpack, pulling out a water bottle and taking a generous swig. They both watch him drink, swallowing reflexively. He wonders how long it’s been since they’ve had anything to drink, anything to eat. Jesse doesn’t blame them for refusing; he wouldn’t trust anything Deadlock gave him, either, if their positions were reversed.

After a few swallows he caps the bottle and rolls it towards the green-scaled shifter, who snatches it off the floor. Looks at it suspiciously, then back at Jesse, who huffs a laugh.

“It ain’t  _ poison,  _ I just drank it. And there ain’t any meds in there either, even if you’d be better off taking those, too.”

The green-scaled shifter carries it over to the other one— his brother, if the traders are to be believed— crouching for a moment and coaxing him to drink. He does so eagerly, water dripping down his chin, his brother petting gently through his hair. They’re both covered in bruises, cuts marring their skin all over, deep enough that they’ll likely scar.

The shifter drinks almost the whole bottle of water before realizing what he’s done, then pulls back all of a sudden to shove what’s left at his brother, who tries to refuse. They growl softly at one another, communicating wordlessly in that way siblings often do. Jesse pulls another pair of water bottles out of his backpack, taking drink out of each before rolling them over one by one.

They look even more suspicious than before, brows drawn and glittering dangerously. He’s got food in his bag, too— beef jerky, mostly. Whatever he could get at a gas station on his way. He won’t need to worry about it if things go well.

They don’t need to be best friends, but they’ll have to help him out if they want to stay alive.

“Listen. You don’t gotta trust me, but you do need to hear me out.”

They glare. They’re wary.

They listen.

-

They end up at Jesse’s trailer, hauled out in an oversized kennel under the pretense of ‘keeping a close eye on them’. They’re still wearing their collars; Jesse hates it as much as they do, but he doesn’t have the key, and he needs to keep up appearances. Cutting a pair of padlocks off some shifters they’re selling to the highest bidder would be hard to explain away if someone came snooping around to check up on them.

Jesse gives them some of his clothes to wear, and feeds them— they’ll only eat if he’s eating it, too. Will only drink after him. 

He tells them all about Blackwatch and lets them listen in on his calls with Gabriel, even if it’s not the smartest thing he’s ever done. Jesse just needs them to hang tight for a little while; if they run they won’t make it far. The desert isn’t kind to strangers, and the local police are all so deep in Deadlock’s pocket that they’d be no help. 

Jesse doesn’t know if they can speak. Neither one of them has said a word. He lets them shower, turning on the water and shutting the door behind them. Jesse half expects to look in later and find the bathroom empty— the window open, both shifters gone, water pouring icy down the drain. It won’t feel good, but he’s done what he can short of chaining them back up.

They don’t run.

They creep out of the shower a while later with wet hair, dressed in a pair of Jesse’s old t-shirts. They limp past him, the green-scaled shifter helping his brother walk. The wound on his thigh is obvious now that the filth has been scrubbed away.

Jesse lets them curl up together in his bed and digs out a biotic field, holding it out in offering.

“One of these every few hours for a day or so and your leg will be as good as new, but it’s gonna make you sleepy. Healing takes energy. So you can let that fester, or you can let me pop this field and get some rest. I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to you, alright?” 

They stare at the biotic field. At each other. At Jesse. He sighs. 

“Papers that came with you say Hanzo and Genji. Those actually your names? Hanzo?” The injured shifter nods, long hair falling into his eyes. Jesse looks to his brother, brows raised in question. “Genji?” He lifts his chin. Tugs Jesse’s clothes tighter around himself. “My name is Jesse McCree. You don’t know me, and you don’t trust me, and that’s just fine. I won’t do nothin’ you don’t want me to do, Hanzo, but without biotics? You’ll be dead in a few days.”

The uninjured shifter— Genji— goes wide eyed at Jesse’s words and snatches the field out of his hands, fumbling at it until he finally activates it mostly by accident. It earns him a sullen look from Hanzo, but his eyelids are already drooping. He leans into Genji, breathing deep and even; less than a minute, and he’s fast asleep.

Genji pulls Jesse’s blankets over Hanzo, curling protectively around him like he had been back at the warehouse. 

  
“Thank fuck,” Jesse says, standing up and heading to the door. “When that field goes off you tell me, and I’ll get you another one, okay? I’ll be on the couch if you need anything.”

He’s almost out of the room when he hears it, whisper soft and barely there.

“Jesse,” Genji says, voice rough with disuse. Jesse looks over his shoulder, brows raised in surprise. “Thank you.”

Jesse tries to tip his hat, only to remember he isn’t wearing it. He shrugs instead.

“Don’t thank me yet. We ain’t out of the woods.”

They’re still in the desert.

It’s always been home for Jesse, but he’ll be glad to leave it behind again.

-

Every time he leaves, he expects to come back and find them gone, but they never go.

They sleep in Jesse’s bed.

Sleep, and sleep, and sleep, like they haven’t slept in ages. More of their cuts and bruises disappear with each biotic field Jesse burns, until their skin is smooth and unmarred again, scales shimmering brightly along their cheeks and throat and forearms. It doesn’t help the sores under their metal collars— they heal, then form again, poorly welded steel constantly scraping. There are strips of silver on the inside to keep them from shifting.

He doesn’t know it’s hurting them until the rest of their injuries have healed and he sees Genji lifting Hanzo’s collar up and fretting over the burn marks, then he’s all frantic apologies. Jesse tears a shirt into pieces and tucks scraps of cotton under the metal. It only has to hold for a few days. It’s not perfect, but it works well enough. They still tug on them, still scowl. Jesse doesn’t hold it against them. 

It’s been a long time since they shifted. Months, at least. If Jesse takes their collars off they won’t be able to hold onto their human forms for very long, and his trailer isn’t big enough to accommodate two fully grown dragons.

They eat ravenously, always waiting for Jesse to take a bite before they’re willing to try something. They prefer meat, of course, but Genji is also incredibly fond of cheap ramen; they put down a staggering amount of food every day, and use up all the hot water in the shower. They steal every single blanket in the house to pile on Jesse’s bed, along with all of Jesse’s jackets and most of his clothes.

They fuck late at night, when Jesse should really be sleeping. Hanzo’s little whines echo through the trailer alongside Genji’s possessive growling. It’s hotter than it has any right to be; Jesse ignores it at first, but he’s only human. He slips his hands in his clothes, and bites down on his knuckles. Comes over his fingers, trying to be quiet, but he isn’t sure why he bothers.

They can smell it on him, even after he’s showered or washed his hands; can smell it in the air, probably, drifting down the hall. If they mind they don’t show it. 

The opposite seems to be true. 

They start sitting in the living room with him when he’s home— on the other side of the couch at first, but edging closer and closer. They don’t talk a lot, but they start laughing at Jesse’s stupid jokes. Genji snickers behind his hand, Hanzo huffing quietly through his wrinkled nose. 

They like when he cooks for them. Like when he sings while he cooks. If he finishes a song and doesn’t start singing again they’ll blink sleepily at him from the couch, all wordless expectation. Then he starts up a new song, off key as always, and they settle back down again. They watch television with him, or listen to the podcasts he leaves droning in the background. Cryptids and ghost stories and unsolved mysteries. Hanzo seems to like them.

If it’s too late at night and especially unsettling, Genji finds Jesse’s phone and turns it off. 

Jesse buys them clothes, but they keep wearing his. They seem to prefer them out of the dirty laundry basket, as opposed to the dryer. He catches them pressing the fabric to their noses, breathing… whatever it is they find there. Jesse’s sweat. Jesse’s scent.

It takes longer than it should for Jesse to read up on dragon shifters, and realize they’re not talking much because they don’t need to speak to one another— mated dragon shifters can communicate telepathically, and Genji and Hanzo are absolutely mated. 

It’s not that they’re not talking much; it’s that they’re not talking to  _ him  _ much. Jesse doesn’t mind. They hum at him when they like something, bare their teeth when they don’t. He gets a few words out of them here and there— hungry, thirsty, shower, cold. When he’s leaving on Deadlock business they ask ‘how long’.

Then one night they tug him back to his own bed and push him down in the nest they’ve made with all his clothes, and Jesse gets  _ want you. _

_ Want you. _

He tries to tell them no. Jesse wants them, too, but they’re still wearing Deadlock’s collars, still locked up inside Jesse’s trailer like prisoners. He doesn’t want them fucking him out of some sense of obligation, or because he’s shown them basic human decency instead of treating them like dogs. 

_ You don’t have to do this,  _ Jesse says. They’re already undressed, tugging at his clothes. Hanzo straddles his hips, eyes lit up eerie blue; it makes the scales on his cheekbones shimmer. Their scales have gotten more vivid with regular food, plentiful water, and daily showers. They stretch from Hanzo’s hips, down over the outside of his thighs; it’s an effort for Jesse not to lay his palms over them, feel how smooth they are under his fingers.

Genji and Hanzo are both hard, cocks the same colors as their scales, thick at the base with ridges that run along the underside. Hanzo and Genji aren’t that different from Jesse in most ways, but they’re decidedly inhuman here. Jesse tries not to stare at them— at the dark, wet slits underneath their shafts, folds dripping slick down their thighs and radiating heat. Hanzo grinds against Jesse, cunt slipping wet along his cock.

_ Don’t  _ have _ to,  _ Genji says as he presses close against Jesse’s side, nuzzling into his throat.  _ Want. Want you. _

_ You’re ours. _

Hanzo reaches between them to take Jesse’s cock in his hand, guiding the tip against himself without sinking down. He looks at Jesse, waiting, rubbing his crown up and down over his slit. Waiting for permission, Jesse realizes.

Jesse thinks about their long claws and their sharp teeth, how they’re stronger than him, even collared and bound to human form. How easy it would be for them to tear him apart if they wanted.

Thinks about them sleeping together in his bed, cuddled up in his dirty clothes, wearing his worn out t-shirts. Lazing on the couch while he fries bacon and eggs, and listening to him sing.

He thinks about Blackwatch coming in less than a week and turning them over to shifter services. 

Thinks about never seeing them again. It hurts more than he expects. Jesse’s throat is tight, and he swallows. Palms Hanzo’s thighs. 

Turns his face towards Genji, catches his lips, and kisses him. Genji inhales sharply through his nose, surging up and cupping Jesse’s cheeks in both hands. 

_ Yeah,  _ he says, nodding as best he can without breaking away from Genji and fighting the urge to rock up into Hanzo’s cunt.  _ Yeah, okay. _

They make a sound he’s only ever heard through the walls at night, when it’s just the two of them in Jesse’s room, a guttural sort of purring. Hanzo takes Jesse in all at once, head thrown back and claws curling against Jesse’s stomach. His hair is blue when the light hits it just right, falling behind him in waves. 

Genji mouths down Jesse’s jaw and bites down into his throat, palm sliding over Jesse’s chest, claws scratching through the hair there. Hanzo is so tight that Jesse has to stop and breathe through it, clinging to his hips,  _ wait, wait, just... give me a second, gorgeous.  _ He hasn’t gotten laid since he went undercover, and even then, it had been months.

Their purring continues. Hanzo smirks down at him, teeth glinting bright, both of them radiating smugness. Genji grins at Jesse, biting his bottom lip, watching them together. 

Hanzo doesn’t give him long before he starts moving, rolling his hips and taking what he wants from Jesse. The padlock on his collar rattles in the clasp. Hanzo leans down to kiss him for a while, then lays his palms on Jesse’s thighs and arches his back as he writhes in his lap. He makes all those same noises Jesse hears at night— high pitched little whimpers. Breathy, eager whines. 

It’s already too much, and Genji isn’t helping. He kisses Hanzo while Jesse watches, then bites at Jesse’s chest, his throat, his mouth. 

He leans down and takes Hanzo’s cock in his mouth, and Jesse comes at the sight, fingers digging deep into Hanzo’s thighs. Genji pulls off Hanzo in time to let him come all over Jesse’s stomach; Hanzo is still shaking with the last vestiges of his climax as he rubs it into Jesse’s skin, purring even louder than before.

Hanzo eases Jesse out of him, laying a palm over his slit like he wants to keep Jesse’s come inside. Jesse is still hard, somehow. He frowns down at himself, but the confusion is short lived.

It’s difficult to be anything but grateful with Genji taking Hanzo’s place on top of him, straddling his hips and sinking down onto his cock with a moan. Jesse swears under his breath— into Hanzo’s mouth as he kisses him again, smearing Jesse’s come against his cunt as it leaks out between his fingers. He doesn’t last any longer the second time around.

Genji rides him hard and fast, adding to the mess on Jesse’s stomach, unearthly green eyes rolling back in his head as Jesse fills him in searing bursts. 

Jesse gets his bearings after that. Pins them down one at a time and fucks them rough while they kiss and claw at each other. Puts them on their faces with a palm between their shoulder blades. Bends them in half and rails them across the mattress. 

Jesse has always had stamina, at least since Blackwatch started running him into the ground on a daily basis in training, but there’s definitely something unnatural about the way he stays hard, the way he keeps coming. The way he doesn’t flag until they’re both sated, pliant and preening and filthy, tugging Jesse down in the bed between them.

He’s covered in bite marks, some of them still bleeding. There are scratches all over his chest and arms and back. 

There’s a serenity in him that goes beyond being satisfied after a good fuck. His fingers are tangled in Hanzo’s hair, and he noses at Genji’s temple, at peace in a way he’s never been. He lays a palm over the collar on Genji’s throat, brows drawing together in distaste. Taking it off isn’t an option, yet, but Jesse wonders what they’d look like shifted. How big they are, if they can fly. Some shifters can only achieve a half-shift; it feels rude to ask.

Blackwatch is coming in a few days. Genji and Hanzo will get their collars off, and disappear, and Jesse will never see them again. He closes his eyes, lets the feel of them purring soak into his bones.

They deserve their freedom, but he doesn’t want to let them go.

-

Genji and Hanzo are insatiable now.

Jesse is insatiable, so long as they want him. He doesn’t come dry after a few orgasms anymore, doesn’t go soft when he’s finished.

He’s done when they’re done, and not a moment sooner. 

It feels like they’re never done, but Jesse isn’t complaining. They drag him to bed, or straddle him on the couch. Get on their knees and pull Jesse out of his clothes, kissing messy around the crown of his cock, drool dripping down their chins. They’re always touching him, always kissing him, rubbing their faces on Jesse to scent mark him. Purring, and humming, pleased with themselves.

They still fuck each other, but it’s mostly when Jesse isn’t home, or while he’s buried inside one of them. Hanzo likes to smear his come on Jesse’s skin. Likes to keep Jesse’s inside himself as long as he can.

Genji bites— bites Jesse. Bites Hanzo. Likes to wait until Jesse pulls out of Hanzo and tuck his face between his thighs, licking at his cunt while Jesse presses into him instead.

Deadlock still comes calling, but no one tries to muscle their way into Jesse’s trailer. He tells them Hanzo is almost healed up, that they’re behaving themselves.

Tells them they just needed a strong hand and some discipline. The words taste sour in his mouth, but then he gets home, and Genji kisses them away. 

-

Two days pass. Three, four. Hanzo and Genji are relentless in their affection.

Blackwatch comes early. 

Jesse is expecting them at dusk, but the sun is barely up when his comm starts screaming from the bedside table, the rattle of gunfire echoing in the distance. Hanzo and Genji are up faster than he is, heads cocked to the side listening. They glance at each other, then at him, and back again.

When Jesse gets his comm in his ear Gabriel is there giving him a sitrep— things went south, the way they often do. Someone in charge of Deadlock’s delivery got spooked, so they had to hit them in transit or risk losing track of the shipment. Now Blackwatch is rolling on Deadlock, hard and fast, and they need Jesse to gear up and get to work.

They know about Hanzo and Genji— or at least, they know there are a pair of dragon shifters caught in the crossfire with no loyalty to Deadlock and every reason to fight on Blackwatch’s side if necessary. Jesse is in his Kevlar with Peacekeeper on his hip in a flash, a set of lockpicks in hand. 

Hanzo watches Jesse’s face as he picks the padlock on his collar. Watches his face as he tugs it away, running his fingers over the inflamed skin of Hanzo’s throat and mumbling a soft apology,  _ sorry it took me so long, sweetheart.  _ Genji purrs as Hanzo is freed, lifting a hand up to run his fingers over Hanzo’s scales as Jesse works his padlock off, too.  _ There you go, darlin’, got you good as new. _

They lunge at him as soon as the steel hits the linoleum. Genji gets there first, kissing Jesse frantically, but he moves aside after a moment to let Hanzo have his turn. Jesse hadn’t expected it, and he ends up on his ass in the floor with two eager dragons passing him back and forth. It takes a minute to get them to ease off, to give him time to speak.

They know all about Blackwatch— what they’ll be wearing, where they’ll be coming from, what to expect. Jesse can already tell they’re struggling to stay human, eyes humming bright and teeth too long in their mouths.

_ Let’s get you two outta here,  _ Jesse says, and they both nod and slink outside ahead of him.

A gunfight is always chaos.

It’s exponentially more chaotic with two fully shifted dragons tearing apart gangsters with their teeth. They’re not as big as Jesse expects, but they aren’t small either, bigger than a Clydesdale by far. They’re gorgeous like this— Jesse tells them as soon as they’ve shifted, and gets nuzzled so hard that he falls on his ass again. 

Both of them have wings, but neither tries to fly. Jesse isn’t sure if they’re still weak from the silver in their collars, or they just don’t want to leave Jesse exposed. They roar so loudly it shakes the ground. Their teeth are like knives. They breathe fire. 

Jesse is in love.

They quickly become a target, which makes Jesse a target, too. He’s not too concerned. Blackwatch will make short work of Deadlock, and reinforcements will reach them all soon enough.

Everything will be just fine, Jesse thinks. 

Then a bullet tears through his Kevlar and buries itself in his chest, and Jesse falls to the ground like a stone. There’s roaring— Hanzo, or Genji, Jesse doesn’t know which. The sound of screams, then a wet crunching noise that makes Jesse shiver. Something curls around him, big and warm and vivid blue. Jesse runs his palm over Hanzo’s scales; they’re so fucking smooth. 

He says it out loud, and Hanzo noses at his chest, letting out a mournful trill when Jesse hisses at the touch. He tries to stay awake, but the world is fading out around him. 

Jesse hears Gabriel calling his name. Hears Genji snarling.

Doesn’t hear anything at all.

-

Jesse wakes up on the transport ship, albeit briefly. There’s the glow of a biotic field, and Gabriel’s weary voice drifting towards him from a distance,  _ we can’t treat him if we can’t touch him, he’ll bleed out at this rate. _

There’s growling, and a scuffle. Clawed hands petting through his hair. 

A needle in his arm,  _ goddamn it, Jesse, what have you done now? _

Jesse tries to grin, but everything is dark, and then he’s gone again.

-

He wakes again in the med-bay at Watchpoint: Las Cruces, an IV in his arm and machinery beeping all around him. It’s hard to breathe.

Jesse doesn’t know if it’s because of the bullet wound, or because Genji is curled up on top of him in the miniscule hospital bed. He’s heavier than he looks. It’s almost suffocating. He buries his face in Genji’s green-black hair and breathes in deep. Hanzo is sitting in a chair next to the bed, head resting on his crossed arms at the edge of the mattress, fast asleep and holding Jesse’s hand.

There are too many painkillers in his system for Jesse to work out exactly how they got here— by all rights Hanzo and Genji should be somewhere far away by now. On their way home, wherever that might be, or into shifter services to get them psychological care and help with housing and social acclimation. Shifters raised in isolation or captivity can have trouble integrating into society. Jesse doesn’t know if they were, or where they came from— doesn’t know much of anything about them, really.

He knows he’d take a bullet for them. Knows they’re important.

Knows the idea of being separated from them is physically painful, like his ribs are being cracked open and his heart tugged out. They stir in their sleep, purring and shifting closer to him before settling again. 

Gabriel sighs from the doorway where he’s leaning against the frame. 

“How are you holding up?” Gabriel asks, then cuts Jesse off before he can answer. “I mean, you’re an idiot, obviously, because you’d have to be an idiot to go undercover on a mission this sensitive and come back pair-bonded to not one, but TWO incredibly dangerous shifters that you’d never even met a few months ago, but, you know. Aside from that.”

_ Pair bonded?  _ Jesse thinks, but he knows better than to say it out loud. He’s aware of what pair bonding is between shifters, or between a shifter and a human. That it runs a lot deeper than being in a relationship, or getting married. It’s something that affects their biology, alters them all the way down into their blood and body chemistry and brain waves. The changes are different depending on what kind of shifters; Jesse doesn’t know what happens with dragons.

Jesse isn’t sure  _ anyone  _ knows what happens with dragons. They’re secretive, often solitary, and on the verge of extinction. 

He also knows it isn’t one-sided. That the bonds don’t form unless both— or all three— parties are invested. It says a lot about just how attached he got to Hanzo and Genji in such a short period of time, and how attached they got to him. He remembers the first time Hanzo and Genji pulled him down into bed,  _ want you, you’re ours. _

Jesse hadn’t expected they meant it quite so literally, but he’s not upset about it.

It explains why they’re in a Blackwatch med-bay with him, curled up with authorization tags hanging from chains around their throats. Tags with Jesse’s name, Jesse’s codes, all Jesse’s information. He tries not to think about the collars they’d been wearing. Fails. It isn’t the same thing, but it still makes his stomach twist. There are a whole host of laws protecting mate’s rights. Jesse’s grateful for them. 

It means not even Blackwatch can keep Hanzo and Genji away. Jesse smiles. Squeezes Hanzo’s hand.

  
“God, wipe that disgusting look off your face.” There’s an undercurrent of jealousy there, laced through the veil of irritation Gabriel’s wearing.

It’s nothing he’s got any right to feel, at least not so blatantly, and Jesse must not be the only one who hears it. Genji stirs against him, opening his eyes to throw Gabriel a baleful look before glancing up at Jesse.

_ Tell him to fuck off.  _

Jesse hears it in his thoughts, as plainly as if Genji had spoken the words. There’s an undercurrent of jealousy there, too, with an edge of viciousness that gives Jesse pause. Genji closes his eyes again and nestles himself closer, reaching over Jesse to thread his fingers in Hanzo’s hair. 

There’s a rush of surprise, but it fades quickly. Having them in his thoughts feels right, like they belong there. Like they’ve always belonged there. Jesse snorts a laugh and smirks at Gabriel.

“He says to tell you to fuck off,” Jesse says. Gabriel glares first, then processes that, brows drawn together. He taps his temple with two fingers.

“Says?” Jesse nods, rubbing a palm up and down Genji’s back. Gabriel looks thoughtful, but he’s still scowling. “As soon as you’re out of here we have a lot of shit to sort out. I want you in my office first thing tomorrow morning at 0800. All three of you,” he tacks on, looking pointedly at Genji, who curls his lip back from his teeth and lets out a lazy snarl.

“Sure thing, boss,” Jesse agrees, eyes already drifting closed again. There’s a weight on the foot of the bed, something nudging his knees apart.

Hanzo is settling down between his legs, resting his head on Jesse’s hip. He cracks an eye open to look at Gabriel and lays a hand possessively on the inside of Jesse’s thigh, claws digging in just enough that he feels it through the sheet. Gabriel mutters something under his breath but turns and leaves the room.

_ Don’t like him,  _ Hanzo says into Jesse’s thoughts, leaning into Genji’s hand where he’s scratching through his hair.

_ Aww, he ain’t so bad,  _ Jesse thinks, except he feels it echoing strangely through his head. Genji and Hanzo purr, not at the words, but at Jesse’s thoughts just for them where no one else can hear.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to deal with things, going forward. It’ll be hard to manage his strike team with two tactile, affectionate dragons refusing to be parted from him. Genji kisses his jaw. Hanzo nuzzles into the place where Jesse’s thigh joins his hip, making himself smaller than should be possible between Jesse’s legs.

His strike team is adaptable.

They’ll adapt.

-

He spends all his transitory moments of awareness that day pressing into Genji and Hanzo’s thoughts, asking them questions. Where they’re from, how they ended up in captivity, how long they’d been there before Jesse showed up. The answers he gets are more like memories, playing out in his thoughts like Jesse lived it all himself. He’s curious.

Then he’s sad.

Then he’s furious like he’s never been before; looking up at their father from his knees. From Genji’s knees. From Hanzo’s knees. Looking up at the ceiling of a dojo with blood in his mouth. Looking at each other, and Genji is covered in gore. Hanzo is covered in bruises throwing up blood into the floor, their father’s fist in his hair,  _ you never listen. _

_ You never learn. _

Collared even then, from time to time. Their father with silver rings on his fingers, his hand wrapped around their throats,  _ easy, easy. _

Fingers prying Genji’s jaw wide, holding down his tongue,  _ shhh, quiet now. _

_ Don’t make me hurt you, little sparrow. _

_ Don’t make me hurt your brother. _

Fighting, and fighting, and fighting. The way they move is ruthless.

The way they move is beautiful. Even in their human forms unarmed Genji and Hanzo are weapons, but Jesse sees them holding swords, throwing knives, drawing bows.

He watches them lower their father into the ground, and feeling a brief instant of raw, overwhelming euphoria. It doesn’t last.

Then they’re being collared by their elders, and caged, and sold. 

Then they are powerless. It isn’t an unfamiliar feeling, even in their memories.

There are more tender things— from before they were sold off by their clan, in the quiet moments they managed to steal together. Hanzo under Genji’s hands. Genji’s mouth against him. Their voices in each others heads, always, bonded for as long as they can remember. Angry and brutalized but never alone. 

Then there is Jesse, and the first gentleness they’ve ever known outside one another. Through their eyes he’s strong and soft but always unafraid. Through their eyes he’s solid, and capable, and kind.

Through their eyes he’s gorgeous.

Through their eyes Jesse belongs to them, right from the start. 

-

They all file into Gabriel’s office the next morning after leaving the med-bay, Hanzo and Genji in some of Jesse’s clothes, stolen from his quarters by one of them while he was still sleeping. There are three chairs. 

Genji sits in Jesse’s lap. Hanzo sits on the floor between Jesse’s feet, an arm wrapped around his calf. Gabriel sighs and walks around his desk, leaning against it while he pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

Jesse doesn’t know what he expected from their meeting, but it wasn’t a recruitment pitch. 

Ultimatum might be a better word for it; join Blackwatch, stay with Jesse. They’ll have to go through training, but he can put them on Jesse’s squad when they’re done. Their telepathy is an asset all on its own, regardless of the rest of their abilities. Gabriel doesn’t mention that there would be a whole lot of red tape involved in even trying to separate Jesse from them for any length of time. Mate’s rights are tricky, involved things. 

Push too far into it and there might be scientists sticking their nose where they aren’t welcome, ready to get Hanzo and Genji into a lab and never let them out again.

It’s not a hard sell for Gabriel. They’re nodding before Gabriel is even done talking, before they know what joining Blackwatch really entails. Not that it matters. Jesse has seen where they’ve been, he knows what their lives were like before now, even if only in pieces. Blackwatch will be easy for them.

Blackwatch will be a dream come true.

-

They take to training like fish to water. 

Mostly, anyway. Dragons aren’t humans, and they don’t always play the part very well. They have no concept of personal space when it comes to Jesse, no matter where they are or who is watching, and no amount of gentle reminders does any good. Other people don’t matter to them, really. There is Jesse, and there are people Jesse respects, and everyone else is just background noise. They follow orders, because Jesse tells them they need to in order to go on missions with him. 

They go through the motions of training. There are other shifters in Blackwatch— Jesse already has a wolf and coyote on his squad— but there are no other dragons. They break all the unit records without trying. They run and swim and leave the rest of the recruits behind like they aren’t even moving, and breathe in tear gas like it’s nothing but air. They learn tactics so fast it’s staggering.

The people who do their resistance to interrogation training are unsettled when they’re finished. Some people handle the pain better than others, but never silently. Never with unblinking eyes following their every move, watching calm and collected as they pull out their claws with pliers or take a blowtorch to their skin. Their irises flare.

They growl, and bare their teeth, and endure.  _ Been through worse,  _ is what they think in unison when Jesse frets over them both afterwards.

It’s true, but he doesn’t have to like it.

Jesse already stays in officer’s quarters with his own small living room and kitchenette, along with a bathroom he doesn’t have to share. 

Hanzo and Genji stay there with him, now. He gets a king size bed that takes up far too much space in the room. It’s a waste, mostly. 

They lay on him whenever possible, or snuggled up into his side, the rest of the mattress empty and disused. Jesse remembers going through training and falling into bed at the end of the day, asleep before his head hit the pillow. It’s different for Hanzo and Genji.

They fuck him ragged every night, taking turns riding him, then one another. Hanzo straddles his hips, and Genji sits on his face, Jesse burying his mouth in the folds of his cunt with a sigh and settling in for the long haul. They leave bruises on him, leave bites. He uses biotics once to heal the marks and they’re so dramatically unhappy about it that he never tries again. 

Hanzo and Genji meet his squad. Rodriguez and Moreno are shifters, too. Iper is unimpressed with all of them, as always. They end up spending a lot of time together— Blackwatch’s boot camp is often finished long before Jesse is done with his work. Holliday squad keeps strange hours, depending on what missions they’re prepping for, what intel they’re going over, what investigations they’re conducting. Telling them to go to bed without him is futile.

They sit in his lap or sprawl on a couch beside him or curl up on the floor at his feet. Jesse thought they were affectionate before, but once they start spending a good chunk of every day away from him, it increases to an astonishing degree. Knowing that dragons are incredibly tactile and seeing it in action are two different things. 

_ Need to touch you,  _ is what they tell him when he tries to explain why they maybe shouldn’t hang off him all the time. It’s not that Jesse minds, but they do get strange looks.

It might have been easier to get them to listen if they couldn’t press into his thoughts, into his feelings. If they couldn’t tell that Jesse likes them there, always where he can put his hands on them. Tangle his fingers in Hanzo’s hair, run his knuckles over the scales on Genji’s cheek. The squad gets used to it fast, even if they tease Jesse from time to time; used to the three of them sharing glances, talking to one another without words.

Hanzo and Genji take a shine to them. They know how important they all are to Jesse. How close they’ve all become. 

How it would break him if he lost any of his guys. It takes a while, but they eventually start talking to Rodriguez and the rest. Just a few words here and there in the beginning, mostly to make fun of them. The whole squad goes wide eyed when they hear Genji’s voice the first time. Hanzo comes later, with a sharper edge to his words. Still teasing, but smug, too. It’s more than their superior officers get out of them.

Dragon shifters are logged in their system as ‘nonverbal’. A lot of the information they have on them as a subspecies is dubious at best, and this is no exception, but Jesse doesn’t bother correcting anyone. Hanzo and Genji’s higher ups get sharp nods and head shakes, and everyone learns some basic sign language. 

Hanzo and Genji learn a lot more than Blackwatch’s playbook, and sign language, and the intricacies of a secretive paramilitary operation.

Hanzo and Genji press into Jesse’s memories, the way he pressed into theirs when they first arrived on base. See him as a child, orphaned in the crisis and living hand to mouth. See him as a teenager in Deadlock, mad at the whole world and trying his damndest to take it down with him. See him in Blackwatch, young and stupid and so eager to please. Eager for someone to look at him and see something besides a fuck-up.

They see Gabriel looking, all those years ago. See him touching, see him tasting; see him shaping Jesse into his right hand. It isn’t that he took from Jesse without giving anything back.

It’s that he only gave Jesse things that would serve him well— a body made for war and all that dogged loyalty. A delicate hand. A sharp eye.

His rough fingers on Jesse’s hips and just enough praise to keep him begging. It wasn’t enough.

Jesse could only be starved for affection for so long before he sought it elsewhere. From his old squadmates, other members of Blackwatch, strangers he fucked after missions all around the world. There was no one serious. No one besides Gabriel. 

Hanzo and Genji are angry as they watch him come up in Deadlock, a vulnerable kid with something to prove and nothing to lose. They’re angry as he gets put through hell in Blackwatch, younger than them and with none of their abilities or years of being groomed as a weapon to pick up the slack. 

Then there are Hanzo and Genji, battered and beaten but no less breathtaking for it. Through his eyes, they’re vicious and beautiful and unblinking in the face of cruelty. 

Through his eyes, they’re everything he needs. Not Jesse’s from the start, but only because he didn’t think he deserved them.

They fuck Jesse slow that night, kissing him until his mouth is swollen with it, whining into his lips. They leave bruises up and down his throat. Bites on his chest, scratches down his back. None of it hurts at the time, all of it sunk into him with agonizing gentleness. His name pours through their thoughts and wraps around him. They don’t need to tell him they love him, because Jesse can feel it in them, something living tying them all together.

They tell him anyway, purring in his ear,  _ love you, Jesse, love you. _

It isn’t the first time. It won’t be the last.

They snarl at Gabriel the next time they pass him in the halls. Gabriel scowls but doesn’t question it. Even without Jesse hanging between them, Jesse doesn’t think they would have gotten along.

Gabriel never did like anyone if he wasn’t sure he could beat them in a fight.

They come find him that evening when he’s still in Holliday’s conference room, Gabriel briefing the squad on an upcoming op. They both snarl again, eyes flaring at Gabriel before Genji settles into Jesse’s lap. Hanzo sits in a chair, putting himself between Jesse and Gabriel, a look of utter disdain on his face. Gabriel looks at Jesse in question, who shrugs little helplessly.

He’s not going to try to explain it. It’s not worth the effort.

Genji nuzzles his face and Hanzo growls low in his throat. Jesse can’t help but smile.

-

Hanzo and Genji get through Blackwatch’s training fast, and with flying colors. They look so good in Blackwatch black and reds.

They still steal Jesse’s clothes when they can get away with it.

The other trainees are resentful at first, bitter about how easy things come to a pair of dragons, but after a while they adjust. It’s dizzying to watch Hanzo and Genji fight one another. When they don’t have to hold anything back it’s hard to follow, and the recruits watching don’t understand the half of it. 

Jesse knows firsthand just how difficult it is to get the drop on someone who can read your every thought. They move together until they’re both covered in sweat, claws swiping through the air and teeth snapping. Their scales shine, and their eyes glow. The growling is terrifying, or it would be, if Jesse couldn’t sense the euphoria sailing through them both. They’ve been fighting each other since they could stand, and it feels like a luxury to be able to once again. 

There’s blood and hissing and snap of bones breaking. It’s playing for them, Jesse realizes. 

It’s flirting. It ends in a draw each time without fail.

It ends with them kissing all tangled up together on the mats, and Jesse has to stop them before they end up naked with their fingers pressed into one another for all the world to see. Dragons don’t have the same hangups about sexuality as humans do. They don’t really care who’s watching. 

They stop when they realize it makes Jesse jealous, the two of them exposed and falling into each other for anyone who cares to look. Hanzo and Genji still make out in the common room, still grind against each other, obscene enough to make most people blush and look away. Jesse finds them together, twisted around each other on a couch while everyone else in the room studiously ignores them.

They just do it with most of their clothes on.

Most of Jesse’s clothes on, usually.

Shifters go through extra assessments after graduation; Blackwatch wants to know what its assets can do, and how well they can do it.

It’s how Hanzo and Genji end up fully shifted for the first time in months in Blackwatch’s outdoor training simulator, recruits from their class and Jesse’s squad and half of command gathered around them staring. They go up to Jesse first, nuzzling into him until he pets over their jaws. Their thoughts are simplistic in this form— there’s  _ Hanzo  _ and  _ Genji  _ and  _ Jesse.  _

There’s  _ friend  _ and  _ enemy  _ and  _ enemy we can’t kill.  _ That last is reserved for Gabriel.

Jesse has to laugh.

-

They join Holliday squad without fanfare, and start going with Jesse on missions. Keeping them on base for more than a couple of days without him has always been a trial. It’s easier now, both of them wearing armor at his back, guns strapped on their thighs. Genji with his sword, Hanzo with his bow. 

Missions have never run more smoothly. It’s not just the extra manpower.

Hanzo and Genji are terrifying, and it’s beautiful to watch. 

-

They’re in bed, flushed and breathing hard and filthy, when Genji pulls out a set of three rings. One for each of them, another one for Jesse. He isn’t sure how they kept it from him, or when they managed to leave base without him noticing. They’re better at the whole telepathy thing than he is, it seems. 

Jesse is confused— what they have runs a lot deeper than marriage, or any of its trappings. He never expected to wear one, and never mourned the loss. What he gets in return is a vague series of images; the squad joking about how they haven’t put a ring on Jesse yet. Other agents glancing down at Jesse’s hand and finding it empty, interest evident in their gazes.

Something taken from Jesse’s memories when he was younger— when he was weaker in all the ways that mattered.

When a ring on his finger was an outrageous fantasy he only indulged in late at night, all alone in his quarters and drunker than he should have been.

_ You don’t want it?  _ Hanzo asks. Quietly. A little hurt. Jesse slips it on his finger and cups Hanzo’s face in his hands.

_ I do,  _ he pushes back, letting him feel the truth of it.  _ Just didn’t expect it, is all. Wish I would’ve thought of it first, maybe. Put one on both of you. _

Hanzo smiles softly. He’s only ever shy when they’re alone, and Jesse is telling him how much he wants him, or how beautiful he is. Jesse kisses him, and thanks them both, and eats them out until they’re shaking.

The squad latches onto their rings like sharks scenting blood in the water, but Hanzo and Genji are merely smug. Jesse is the one who gets flustered, flushes hot and tells them to fuck off.

_ Cute, _ he hears in unison, Hanzo and Genji staring like they want to push him down on the floor then and there.

_ Oh, y’all fuck off, too,  _ he says, and they grin, and ignore him.

-

Jesse is coordinating a mission with his squad and three other strike teams. Fallout, Rapture, and Haystack are usually stationed elsewhere, but they’ve been cherry picked by Gabriel and flown in to collaborate. They’re all sitting around a long conference table with Jesse at the head, briefings on their tablets and holo screens on the wall shifting from one set of images to the next— pictures from reconnaissance missions, dossiers on important targets, timelines of events. 

Fallout is all accounted for, as is Rapture. Two of Haystack’s agents got called to the armory earlier to get some of their custom gear squared away. Holliday has been running training sims in Jesse’s absence all day, having already been through most of this intel, but they’re trickling in one at a time now that they’ve finished. Rodriguez first, followed by Moreno a few minutes later. It’s well past time to call it a day, but Jesse wants to get to a good stopping point before packing it in for the night.

He’s just started rehashing some details about the cartel they’re after and their ties to Talon when Hanzo comes into the room, drawing everyone’s eyes. They’ve heard about Holliday’s dragons— everyone in Blackwatch has heard of them, and most of Overwatch, too. 

Hanzo is in a Blackwatch tank top that’s at least one size too small and some sweatpants, strands of wet hair falling out of his bun. The scales on his cheeks are always especially vivid after he showers, shimmering in the low light of the room.

He’s so fucking pretty. It’s been almost a year, and Jesse keeps thinking he’ll get used to it, but he never does. He wants to put his mouth to the blue on Hanzo’s throat, sink his teeth into it. 

It will have to wait, but Hanzo still doesn’t understand personal space. Has never. Will never. He crosses the room and straddles Jesse, settling into his lap. Hanzo presses his face under Jesse’s jaw, rubbing it back and forth as he breathes in deep. Scent marking him, reveling in the closeness. It’s a common enough occurrence that Jesse doesn’t miss a beat, running a palm up and down Hanzo’s back and giving him room to nuzzle as he finishes reading off a list of known cartel associates.

No one is listening anymore. They’re staring with their brows raised, glancing at one another as if to make sure they’re not the only one seeing their strike coordinator with a lapful of touch starved dragon. 

He’d spoken with the squad leaders of Rapture and Fallout and Haystack before they flew in and assigned their squads all a few hours of sensitivity training regarding shifters, along with some basic information about Hanzo and Genji and dragons in general. It shouldn’t have been necessary— people in Blackwatch should already know better than to ask rude, invasive questions— but it would keep Jesse from having to waste his time explaining things. That they’re mostly nonverbal, that they don’t always understand social cues. 

That they’re incredibly tactile, and seek almost constant affection from their mates regardless of their surroundings. He didn’t mention that he was, in fact, their mate. It wasn’t that it didn’t seem relevant.

It just didn’t feel like any of their business. Jesse wasn’t going to apologize for them when they hadn’t done anything wrong. They’d adjust, the same way his squad adjusted.

Jesse clears his throat, and they all shake themselves and look back up at the holoscreen, only throwing sidelong glances at Hanzo and Jesse from time to time. Genji comes in just as he’s getting ready to wrap things up, and Hanzo slips wordlessly out of Jesse’s lap to make room. He sits sideways across Jesse’s thighs instead of straddling him, sighing heavily. 

_ Almost done,  _ Jesse says, petting through Genji’s damp hair while the leader of Haystack tries and fails not to stare again. Hanzo is sitting in the chair next to Jesse that’s been empty all day long, tapping away at his tablet and ignoring everyone else in the room. 

“All right, I think we’re done for the day. We’ll finish up tomorrow and go over all the mission specs, make sure everyone is on the same page. Be sure to stop by the armory, make sure your gear is kitted out with an evac harness. Shit goes south and you need flown outta there, Hanzo and Genji need something to grab that’s not gonna shred or tear off your armor.” 

Hanzo and Genji look around the room with something between apathy and disdain. They’ll fly into a hail of gunfire to save any of Jesse’s squad without hesitation, but they don’t know these agents. If Jesse asks them to they’ll do it, but they won’t be pleased.

Everyone files out of the room, giving Jesse polite nods. As soon as they’re gone Genji shifts in his lap, pressing his mouth to Jesse’s with a purr.

_ Want you,  _ he hears from Genji, an affirmation echoing almost immediately in Hanzo’s voice. Jesse grins into the kiss, lifting his hand to touch the smooth scales on Genji’s cheek.

_ Don’t you always?  _ Jesse asks. He means it to be teasing, but Hanzo and Genji don’t notice, or don’t care.

_ Yes,  _ he gets back, honest and emphatic.

They tug him to his feet, and drag him down the hallways, and pull him into bed.

-

Blackwatch falls apart slowly, then all at once. 

Jesse doesn’t notice, at first. It’s their funding being cut little by little, missions stacked up with too much to do. Not enough manpower, not enough time. It’s the UN shoving their noses in where they haven’t before, asking questions that Gabriel can’t answer without showing his hand. 

It’s Jesse being carried into the orca bleeding and unconscious, Hanzo and Genji screaming in his thoughts so loudly he could hear it in his dreams. Jesse in pieces that don’t fit together any more. 

Jesse with steel on his arm and in his chest and it hurts to leave Gabriel behind with the world falling apart but Jesse can’t save it with him. He’s not made like Gabriel. Not made like Hanzo, or Genji. Jesse’s only human.

_ Please,  _ they say, irises glowing and teeth too long in their jaws.

_ We can’t lose you,  _ and Jesse doesn’t hear it. 

Jesse feels it.

They go.

-

They go back to Hanamura and tie up loose ends. It’s bloody, and ugly, but Jesse doesn’t lose any sleep over it. Vengeance looks good on Hanzo. On Genji. 

Jesse didn’t live through it with them, but he can still remember. The nightmares he has aren’t always his own, and he can breathe easier with the clan elders in pieces. There are other dragons, but they have no quarrel with Hanzo and Genji, and they seem content to let the two of them do their dirty work.

He used to think Blackwatch would end up burying him. Jesse hadn’t minded, at the time.

Now he sleeps in cheap hotels with Hanzo and Genji curled up against him. Under the stars in the wilderness, fearless and content. Now he wakes up with Genji’s mouth around his cock. Hanzo taking his hands, pressing Jesse’s fingers into his slick cunt, both of them purring. 

Now he starts wondering if they’ll bury him, instead. If they’ll be here long after he’s gone. 

_ No,  _ they say, neither of them concerned.  _ You’ll age with us, now. _

Slowly. Dragons aren’t immortal, but they live a long, long time. 

Jesse has this, now; Genji sitting across a ramshackle apartment painting his claws in vivid green. Hanzo in one of Jesse’s hoodies, napping on the couch. Peacekeeper is in the nightstand beside their bed. Stormbow is tucked in the closet. Genji’s katana is leaned against the wall behind the bedroom door.

Sometimes, they have to use them. Usually they don’t.

It’s easier to fall into the quiet of it all than Jesse expects. They move from place to place, often somewhere in the city. Genji likes dancing, likes drinking. Likes crowds if Jesse and Hanzo are there. Sometimes they end up out in the woods for a while. Hanzo likes the quiet, likes the stillness. There are winters with nothing but evergreens as far as the eye can see and summers on the beach and autumns in the middle of some ubiquitous urban sprawl.

There is Hanzo on his right, and Genji on his left, and even when he’s miles away, Jesse isn’t alone.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been years when Overwatch tracks him down. Doesn’t feel someone is calling him back home.

_ Tell them to fuck off,  _ Genji says again. Jesse has to smile.

They’ll make do without him, he’s sure.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me nice things!


End file.
